1 April 2010

Leering old villains of the world unite in frocks

April 1. I sometimes worry that the title "All Fools Day" is a trifle over-general and unspecific. Perhaps we should rename today Dawkins Day, in perpetuam rei memoriam, as Roman Pontiffs put it.

I do hope you won't forget the Dawker's memorable description (see my heading) of our Holy Father. There is so much there - as the great Fr Zed would put it - to drill into.

Trousers, as I understand it, irrupted upon the scene when the Barbarians invaded the decaying Roman Imperium. We clergy, when properly clad, have never quite reconciled ourselves to this nasty innovation. It's not only us, however. In the Middle East as in very many parts of the world, the traditional dress for all men no less than for women is frockish. Trousers only marched in when Western Imperialism planted its economic and military feet around the globe. And today, trousers are a symbol of Western Cultural Imperialism; whether worn by male bankers or by abortifacient women flocking to International Conferences on Reproductive Health Care, or whatever it's called.

Tear off your Trousers; on to the bonfire with them. You know it makes sense. Destroy this symbol of the Vandals and the Goths, and of those who transplanted the deathly values of the 'Enlightenment' into country after country, continent after continent. And if this seems a dauntingly large enterprise, well, as Fr Zed (how that man has left his mark upon us all) so wisely puts it, Brick By Brick. We could begin with something really quite modest and specific; as a sort of proleptic synecdoche, we could debag the Dawker.

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If some pedant comments that the Vandals didn't really wear trousers, I shall delete him. After all, this is April 1, and, like the Dawker, I'm in no mood for facts or logic.

Fr John Hunwicke

was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. He is now incardinated into the Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. Nothing on this site is to be taken as representing the views of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham, of its Ordinary, or of any part of it.